BOOKS.
DEMOCRACY AND DIPLOMACY.*
Tun questions of how far diplomacy should be 'conducted in secret, and the extent to which • it is desirable that inter- national arrangements should be brought under democratic irontrol, have recently received much attention. It is eminently desirable that these subjects should be fully slimmed, for, curiously enough, although on many points the opinions of the diplomatists and their critics diverge very widely, neither one class nor the other is by any moans satisfied with the existing state of things. One of the principal obstacles which hitherto prevailed to impede a full discussion was that the democratic critics of diplomacy dealt for the most part in rather vague generalities which rendered it difficult fully to realize either the precise nature of the evils against which they declaimed, or the methods which they pro- posed in order to remedy those evils. This obstacle has now to some extent been removed. Mr. Arthur Ponsonby, who has taken a leading.part as a critic) of diplomacy, heel embodied the case which finds favour in the eyes of himself and his associates :in a short • work entitled Democracy and Diplomacy.
• Before dealing with Mr. Ponsonby's criticisms or his proposals
liamocrao acid Dtplunuoil. By Arthur Ponsonby, zee. Lonituu: Wthuon wad Co. 12s, 6(11 it will be desirable to say a few words as regards the spirit in which he approaches the su bject. That spirit is, to say the least, regrettable. f there is one point more than another on which the special school of politicians to which Mr. Ponsonby belongs is prone to dwell, it is that those who are opposed to their views aro incapable of appreciating the nobility of their ideals. There never was a time when it was more necessary than at present to entertain sound national ideals. Whatever may be the results of the war, it is certain that the conditions of society in most civilized communities, as also their thoughts and aspirations, will undergo a great change. National ideals will have to be transformed. National methods will have to be refurbished. It may be that a new era of world-progress will be inaugurated. It is essential that, whilst political thought is in this state of flux, the ideals conceived by the British nation should be worthy of progressive civilization. There is one very noble ideal which is now entertained by many thoughtful people in this country. It is that, amidst all the sorrow and affliction which has been caused by the present war, a great national benefit may accrue from the fact that all classes of society have been knit together in a common effort, and have, for the time being at all events, been inspired by a common sentiment and common cspirations. it is hoped that this sense of unity will survive the war, that all classes will learn to understand each other to a greater extent than has hitherto boon the ease, and that class discord, if it cannot be made to disappear altogether, will at least be much mitigated. The obstacles to the attainment of this noble ideal may, indeed, possibly prove insuperable, for no thoughtful politician can fail to entertain soma misgivings as to the consequences of the changed conditions of society which will ensue in this country when the war is over. Nevertheless, the example afforded by the Army constitutes a hopeful symptom. All accounts go to show that as one result of the conflict which is now raging there has been a strong tendency to fits') together the different social ranks from which the officers and men are respectively drawn. It is surely the duty of every thoughtful lover of his country to help to the boat of his ability towards the realization of this soul-stirring ideal. The spirit in which Mr. Ponsonby approaches the subject now under diseuSsion is, unfortunately, calculated to act in an opposite direction. Throughout the whole of his work there runs a vain of bitter hostility towards all those who are likely to oppose his peculiar political opinions. The views of all the official and aristocratic classes are grossly misrepresented. This is especially the case as regards the diplomatists. There have been in the past, and without doubt there now are, diplomatists who are competent and others who are incompetent, but it is surely the extreme of arrogance and prejudice to speak of all the members of a service which has produced, for instance, such men as Lord Lyons, the late Lord Ampthill, and Sir Robert Morier in the past, and Lord Hardinge of Penshurst, Sir Rennell Rodd, Sir Arthur Harding°, Sir Cecil Spring Rice, Sir Arthur Nicolson, and Mr. Marling at the present time, as " spiders of intrigue " who have for too long been allowed to " weave undisturbed their tangled webs in secret," and who should now " be chased out of darkness into the open light of day " ; whilst the statement that the official advisers of the Secretary of State " treat coun- tries as pawns with a !sublime disregard of popular feeling" may without exaggeration be classed as idle and pernicious clap-trap. Mr. Ponsonby's prejudices again crop up in the manifest desire which ho shows to exclude all Peers from any real part in the control of public affairs on the ground of their unrepresintativ character. Writing of this sort is distinctly mischievous, but it is perhaps not surprising, for all history is there to show that there is no more bitter or unjust critic of aristocracy than ue aristocrat who ostentatiously separates himself from the class to which by birth and association lie naturally belongs.
Neither is this the only general criticism which may legiti- mately be made on Mr. Ponsonhy's work. He is evidently an ardent, and without doubt a perfectly honest and sincere, democrat. Democratic government in this country stands at present but little in need of any defence. German absolutism has brought heirno to every class of the community the fact that, although there may be miner differences of opinion between us, we are all democrats hero. But if democracy is to be defended at all, th method adopted by Mr. Ponsonby constitutes a very inadequate defence. That method consists in glossing, over all the manifold and glaring defects of democratic rule or of
ignoring their existence. A more legitimate defence, which should appeal to the minds of all really thoughtful and impartial politicians, is that, in spite of those defects, democratic rule, m view of the fallibility of all human institutions, possesses far greater merits than any alternative system which can be substi- tuted in its place.
The fact that the whole of Europe is at war constitutes Mr. Ponsonby's main criticism on diplomatic action. " Diplomacy," ho says, " has failed. This is an outstanding fact about which there can be no manner of dispute. The statesmen of Europe did not succeed in saving the nations from a portentous calamity." This is quite true; but to what was the failure duo ? Wholly to the fact that the statesmen of Germany and Austria never intended to succeed. All the evidence available goes to show that in the summer of 1914 the war party in these two countries had completely gained the upper hand, and that they were intent on forcing on the calamity which Mr. Ponsonby very rightly describes as portentous. It is probable that nowhere was their action more strongly condemned than amongst the statesmen and diplomatists of other countries who were earnestly striving to preserve the peace of the world. It is notorious that a large amount of personal responsibility rests more especially on the German Ambassadors at the Courts of Vienna and Petrograd. But Mr. Ponsonby is not content with this explanation. He apparently condemns the action of French, British, Russian, and Italian quite as much as that of German or Austrian diplomacy. He is mani- festly of opinion that democracy or democratic influence exerted over diplomacy would have succeeded better. Is there any reason for supposing that this view of the case is correct ? There is none. The only way in which it is just conceivable that the war might have been averted was for the British Government and the British nation to have made it clear to all the world at a very early period that, under certain contingencies, they would unhesitatingly intervene, and to have, for some long while previous to the war, prepared for the struggle which, in 'fact, was almost inevitable. They did nothing of the kind. It is true, as Mr. Ponsonby says, that the people of this country were not well informed—a point to which further allusion will presently be made. But they were not altogether without information. There were, indeed, many statesmen and diplomatists who failed to recognize the gravity of the impending danger. On the other hand, there were others —eminent soldiers, diplomatists, and a very few high-clans journalists—who, for some long while previous to the war, never ceased to warn their countrymen of the perils of the situation. Their voices were unheeded ; they were regarded as prejudiced and self-interested scaremongers, and their advice was particularly neglected by the special school of politicians to which Mr. Ponsonby belongs, who closed their ears to all warnings, and were determined to believe only what they wished to be true. Far from enforcing the lessons which are obviously to be deduced from the discussions which preceded the war, Mr. Ponsonby wishes to increase the influence of all those classes who were wrong, and to diminish, if not entirely to obliterate, that of thOse who were right.
Another general observation which may be made on Mr. Ponsonby's views is that, being, like most of the members of the House of Commons, animated by a strong feeling of esprit de corps, he greatly exaggerates the political foresight and acumen of that body. For instance, he says that in dealing with domestic affairs the House of Commons " has not only proved its capacity but its special ability." It may well be doubted whether the general public is prepared to accept either the capacity or the ability of the House of Commons at Mr. Ponsonby's valuation. That House has signally failed In the performance of what is generally considered its most important function—namely, the control of public expenditure. More- over, it is notorious that of late years many measures of the utmost importance have been hurriedly passed through the House of Commons with a very insufficient degree of discussion and deliberation. Neither has the conduct of foreign affairs in that House of late years been such as to inspire an unlimited amount of confidence hi its collective wisdom. The purchase of the Persian oilfields was hustled through the House without any sufficient appreciation of the extreme gravity of the issues at stake.
The facts on which Mr. Ponsonby bases his opinions are often as contestable as the opinions themselves. Thus he says that the secret clauses of the Treaty negotiated between France and
this country in 1904 on the subject of Morocco " practically vitiated the whole spirit of the original agreement." Without dwelling at length on this point, it will be sufficient to say that there is no foundation whatever for this statement. The particular Articles of the secret Treaty to which Mr. Ponsonby presumably alludes (III. and IV.) were a very wise measure of preventive diplomacy, and in no way- vitiated the arrangement made in the public Treaty. They merely supplemented Article VIII. of that Treaty.
These and other defects which it would be easy to indicate should not, however, be allowed to obscure the fact that Mr. Ponsonby's main contention is one which may and should receive the hearty assent of many who disagree with him in detail. Ho strongly urges the necessity, in dealing with foreign affairs, of ensuring the co-operation and approval of the great mass of the people. He is manifestly quite right. It is certain that of recent years foreign affairs have received comparatively loss attention in Parliament than was formerly the ease. This . is partly due to the fact that there are now relatively few Members of Parliament who take much interest in international questions, but still more to the fact to which the Speaker has alluded— namely, that " there is no violent party discord on foreign affairs." Mr. Arthur Balfour holds that immunity from discussion is a good thing in itself. " I think," he said to a Select Committee which sat in 1914, " that neither Indian affairs nor foreign affairs are very fitting subjects for constant discussion and debate." That there is a great deal of force in this criticism cannot be doubted. It would not be difficult to quote instances where public discussion of foreign and Indian affairs has done more harm than good. On the other hand, the absence of discussion naturally engenders ignorance. Whicla of those two views should be allowed to prevail is perhaps doubtful. My . personal opinion is that, on the whole, the importance of enlightening ignorance, coupled with the very great necessity of ensuring the co-operation of the people is which Mr. Ponsonby very rightly alludes, are arguments of such importance that they should be allowed to predominate. • .
The chief of the proposals made by Mr. Ponsonby in order to dispel the prevailing ignorance on foreign. affairs are that in the normal course of things the Foreign Office Vote should be discussed for at least two days in thS House of Commons, and that it should be the recognized duty of a Foreign Secretary to make periodical pronouncements in the country on foreign affairs, more especially when Parliament is not sitting. So far as any one who has net sat in the House of Commons is able to judge, these suggestions would appear to be well worthy of considera- tion ; but they merely touch the fringe of the question. They do not go to the root of the existing evil. There is, in fact, one fatal defect in Mr. Ponsonby's analysis of the situation. He ascribes to faulty diplomacy the results which arc, in reality, due to faulty statesmanship. As regards the present war, it seems impossible to get out of the dilemma that for some while previous to its outbreak the British Ministers of the day were either hoodwinked to the extent of not realizing the trend al German policy—•an hypothesis which does no credit to their intelligence—or that they realized the danger but had not the foresight or moral courage to warn the democracy of its exist- ence. Reluctance to lay unpleasant truths before the public . is no new feature in our political life. For many years successive Ministries declined to let the democracy know that the double Egyptian policy of evacuation and reform, which was favoured by Mr. Ponsonby's political predecessors, was wholly impossible of execution, and that one or other would have to be discarded. Mororecently, a further striking instance in point has occurred in the domain of military administration. From the very firat moment when war was declared, it was obvious to every intelli- gent observer that if the men required to reinforce the Army could not be obtained under the voluntary system, it would be necessary to have recourse to compulsion. Yet even after fifteen months of war the utterances of the responsible Ministers of the Crown on this all-important subject continuo to be Delphic to the verge of incomprehomibility.
What, in fact, we are now suffering from, however little Mr. Ponsonby and his friends may recognize the fact, is not faulty diplomacy, but want of leadership. In the past, albeit the influence of democracy has been steadily growing, we have had leaders. Peel, Lord Jelin Russell, Lord Palmerston, Disraeli, Gladstone, and Chamberlain were not content to adopt the maxim which the Jacobin leader applied to his followers : Je suis leur chef ; it faut que je lee suive. To a greater or lee
extent, they led. They did not merely follow. Why is it that the art of leadership appears for the time being to be in abey- ance ?. It is difficult to believe that there has been any general deterioration whether in respect to the character or ability of our public men. The reason must be sought elsewhere. It may probably be found in the facts that with the growth of the electorate democracy has become far more unwieldy than was formerly the case ; that some national demoralization has ensued by reason of the frequent concessions made to mere popular clamour, although those concessions were often recog- nized as faulty by many of the wisest and most liberally minded statesmen of the day ; and that a whole race of time-serving and opportunist politicians has grown up who have led the people to think that they are not only omnipotent, which, when united, they are, but that they are also omniscient, which they most certainly are not.
There is little hope of any real improvement until, on the one hand, political leaders arise who will have the moral courage to state the facts without being deterred by the consideration that in doing so they may sacrifice their influence and impair their power of guidance, and until, on the other hand, the democracy learns that those who merely flatter the people are by no means always their best friends. Reforms in the method of selecting candidates for the Diplomatic Service, such as those proposed by Lord MacDonnell's Commission, are excellent in their way, and it is to be hoped that they will eventually be adopted. But it is very improbable that they will produce the far-reaching effect which Mr. Ponsonby anticipates. Still less is it likely that any real good will ensue from the fantastic proposal made by Mr. Ponsonby that a House of Commons Committee composed of from thirty to fifty members, from which all those whose services would be of the most value are to be rigorously excluded, should be appointed to advise on foreign affairs. This proposal has, as a matter of course, been scouted by Mr. Balfour, the present Prime Minister, and the Speaker of the House of Commons. It is almost inconceivable that it should be entertained by the responsible Ministers of
Previous page
